Due to recent advances in technology, computer users are now able to enjoy many features that provide an improved user experience, such as playing various media and multimedia content on their personal or laptop computers. For example, most computers today are able to play compact discs (CDs) so users can listen to their favorite musical artists while working on their computers. Many computers are also equipped with digital versatile disc (DVD) drives enabling users to watch movies.
In some multimedia environments, a computer has access to a computer-readable medium storing compressed media files such as Moving Picture Experts Group audio layer-3 (MP3) files and WINDOWS MEDIA technologies audio (WMA) and video files. The computer typically organizes the media files into playlists when the compressed media files are played on the computer. The files may be organized according to metadata or other property data associated with the media content. Metadata for a digital media file such as an audio file includes general information pertaining to the media file itself. This information is typically stored within the file. For example, an audio file may have metadata tags for the song title, song artist, album title, and a rating. For example, in the case of audio media files, the files may be organized by album, artist, genre, date, or some user-specified selection and ordering. A user easily navigates through this organization using menus and graphical displays to render the desired media files.
However, some media files lack metadata or have metadata that needs to be updated. The organization of such media files without sufficient metadata is limited. Some existing systems request metadata for audio content. However, these existing systems fail to obtain metadata for media content in a way that is compelling to users while not being overly intrusive. There is a need for a metadata service that automatically, without user intervention and in the background, updates all of the media content of the user as specified by the user regardless of the quality of the metadata currently in the file storing the media content. Existing systems further fail to provide the user with the same metadata experience when inserting any computer-readable medium storing content. The quality of the metadata is important because selecting music can be the bulk of the work in listening to music (e.g., users often listen to the radio because someone else has taken on the burden of selecting the music), particularly when users have access to large music collections (e.g., digital formats, P2P, etc.).
Accordingly, a system for resolving metadata matched to media content is desired to address one or more of these and other disadvantages.